WALTHAM -- Boston Celtics center Kevin Garnett apparently didn't feel like addressing his succession of nagging injuries before Thursday's practice. Or maybe he just likes referring to himself in the plural form.

Asked if he feels physically ready for Game 3 against the New York Knicks, the 15-time All-Star replied: "We're a confident group." He repeated the same phrase when asked specifically how confident he is in his health.

Garnett missed 10 of Boston's final 13 regular season games with foot inflammation, stemming from what Doc Rivers has explained as "a bone something, a bone spur." Garnett also suffered a hip pointer during Tuesday's Game 2 loss, reacting badly enough to the pain that Rivers repeatedly asked him if he needed a substitute.

Garnett is still expected to play in Friday's Game 3, and should be available for most of Thursday's practice.

"We're planning on him practicing," Rivers said. "I'm not going to let him go through the entire practice even if he's feeling good. I know a hip pointer, all you need is somebody to bang into you or something -- I don't even know if it is that, but we're going to be careful with that."

Rivers said he was glad Garnett didn't injure his stomach, which the coach initially feared because of the way Garnett clutched at his midsection.

"You see someone grabbing there, you immediately think stomach muscle which is the worst," Rivers said, continuing with a smile, "That's why in our era, we didn't do situps so we never could hurt that muscle. But that was my fear, and that's a bad injury. It wasn't that."

The Celtics still want to stress feeding Garnett in the post, but Rivers indicated that a lack of play-makers could make the difficult.

"One of our guys even gave me a list of guys who should throw the post pass, and it was two guys," he said. "I laughed, and I said, 'Well one of them is the post guy, so that narrows our choices a little bit.'"

Asked if Paul Pierce needs to take much of the responsibility for feeding Garnett, Rivers made a Superman reference to indicate that the Celtics can't ask Pierce to do everything.

"We can be more creative," said Rivers. "I have to be. That's just asking Paul to do too much. We're asking him to guard Carmelo (Anthony) at the time, we're asking him to bring the ball up the floor at times, we're asking him to be our post passer. Listen, he's Paul Pierce. He's not Christopher Reeve."